mutteringhousewife

November 5, 2012

Chicken Stock

I can’t believe that people are charging fourteen bucks a litre for chicken stock. I can’t believe people are paying it! Do you know how much it costs you to make your own? So close to zero I can’t even be bothered working it out. It’ll take maybe ten minutes of your time, and most of that is bagging it. You must make chicken stock!

There’s a zillion recipes for chicken stock on the internet, possibly even a zillion and a half, so you can pick one that looks good to you. Many are a lot fancier than the one I’m making today, but this is your basic add it to couscous or a stirfry stock, although it’s also an excellent soup base.

You need a chicken carcass. You’ll find that you have one if you can’t be bothered cooking and go and get chicken and chips. Or if you’ve roasted a chicken. Save all the bones and skin and bits that people won’t eat in a bowl in the fridge. You’ll also need some flavoursome vegetables, the classic three are celery, carrot and onion. You don’t need to peel them or chop them neatly, and they can be in pretty much any state. The celery I’m using today is the leaves and inner bit of a bunch I bought for the kids to dip into peanut butter. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it. You can use any limp carrots you find at the bottom of the crisper. You don’t have to peel the onion, just chop it roughly. Put approximately one each of those three veg in a large saucepan (or just the tops of one bunch of celery) and if you’re feeling fancy sautee them in a bit of butter until they have brown bits on them. I really wasn’t in the mood today, so I didn’t. Chuck in the chicken carcass and skin and fill the saucepan about three quarters full of water. Bring to the boil and simmer covered for quite a long time, an hour minimum if you lack planning ability and rather feel like chicken noodle soup for dinner, three or four hours if you’re hanging about the house sewing soldier’s tunics and paying musicians.

You can add other flavours to the stock, today I’ve shaken in some peppercorns and a clove of garlic. I’ve also put in those incredibly desiccated bay leaves that even the nicer spice brands put out, I’m never terribly convinced they’ll add much flavour. About fifteen minutes before you have to go pick up the kids, strain the stock into a large bowl. Leave the bits in the strainer to hang over the bowl to drip while you’re out. When you get home, stick the bowl in the fridge.

The next day you can skim off the fat and bag the stock. I seem to use about half a cup at a time, so I’ll measure half cups into little ziplock freezer bags. Put those in the freezer. If you are that kind of person you can write the date and contents on the bag. Some days I am that person, some days not. Now how easy was that?

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November 2, 2012

Cake Decorating

If one of your friends suddenly turns mummy blogger then you know you’re going to be fodder the moment you do anything interesting with them. Today it was my introduction to cake decorating and as if that isn’t something I should be sharing then I don’t know what is.

I generally focus more on how my baked goods taste than what they look like. I slap icing on birthday cakes mainly because I’m the one that gets to lick the bowl, but that’s as far as it goes. You could call my style rustic, if you were being polite. It turns out that there’s a whole world of pretty out there that can go on top of your homemade deliciousness and also that a whole lot of people rather like it. So when my good friend and neighbour who also happens to be such a good cook that she can make sparkly macarons without breaking a sweat offers to demonstrate basic cake decorating to a group of mortals, I’m so in.

We gathered at another neighbour’s recently renovated house which is so perfect and clean and gleaming it just makes me cry a little inside. I’m good at the feeding the family side of housewifery and slowly improving on the end of year play costume making front, but tidying and cleaning aren’t my strong points. It was a shame to clutter up her shining benchtop with balls of fondant and rolling pins and sparkle powder and gel colours, but you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.

Hours of mucking around with playdough with your preschool kids will stand you in good stead for cake decorating. You can get the fondant from the supermarket – I had a look at the do it yourself version and it is possible, but only if you are able to work quickly which means lots of experience. You should use gel colours to colour it, but I did find that they leave a slight chemical taste. I wonder if I’m the first person to want to use natural colours? One of the girls suggests that this may not be the case, but the natural ones make you feel good and don’t really work. Isn’t this often the way? Perhaps I should go for all white decorations.

At its most basic, you just roll out the fondant really really thin. You can either cut out a circle to cover a cupcake (that has previously had a glue of ganache or hot jam applied), and or cut shapes and letters out. I was very tempted to photograph all of the pages in the Planet Cake book the guru brought along for ideas for pirate faces, cheeky monkeys, Mr Men and the like. You can also make 3D shapes, this stuff really does have a similar consistency to playdough. Pity birthday season is over in this house, but it does give me plenty of time to practise for next year. First, though, a visit to the cake decorating section of the local kitchen shop for sparkle powder.

Remind me not to blog after the family has got home, if it has been a little disjointed it’s because I haven’t been able to get half a sentence out without being required to go and look at something, remove a knot from hair, deny a request and tell children every five minutes that I still haven’t decided what’s for dinner. If they ask me again, they’re getting quinoa. But they can have a fondant flower for dessert.

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November 1, 2012

Not Coca Cola Syrup

When one has given up a glass of wine with dinner during the week for whatever reason, it may be that you’re thinking of your schoolgirl figure, it may be that your husband has gone on a health kick and you’ve decided to be uncharacteristically supportive rather than making his favourite biscuits all the time, where was I? Oh yes, one still feels the need to have something a little special with dinner as a reward for not skinning anyone alive during the day. What I’ve been in the mood for lately and have only just got around to making today is homemade cola.

This is one of those more complicated recipes that you have to be full of energy and optimism to make. You need such fancy things as a Microplane grater (the fine one) and some muslin. I started off with the classic recipe published by the New York Times last year, which I could make you go and look up, but I guess I’ll be kind and list it here. Then I’ll tell you what I actually did.

Ingredients:
Grated zest of two oranges
Grated zest of one large or two small limes
Grated zest of a lemon
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 point of a star anise, crushed
1/2 teaspoon dried lavender flowers
2 teaspoons minced ginger
A one and a half inch piece of vanilla pod, split
1/4 teaspoon citric acid
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Method:
Bung everything except the sugar and citric acid in a saucepan with two cups of water. Simmer gently covered for twenty minutes. Place the sugar and citric acid in a bowl, top with a sieve lined with a double layer of muslin. Pour the concoction through the sieve and squeeze all the fluid out. Stir the syrup while it’s still hot to dissolve the sugar. To serve you put a quarter of a cup of syrup in a tall glass and top up with soda water.

This is a pretty good recipe as it stands. There’s a bit of a treasure hunt involved for ingredients, but once you have them you have a summer’s worth of cola. I get out the Microplane first and do the zesting, the nutmeg and the ginger straight into the saucepan. Today I used a large pink grapefruit instead of the two oranges, and I think I prefer it. I use half a cinnamon stick in place of the pinch in the recipe. I felt that it needed a little more gravitas, so added a tablespoon of ground coffee to the saucepan as well. I also use a full teaspoon of citric acid, I think it makes it zippier. I simmer it for about an hour, which probably doesn’t make a great deal of difference.

Now I should go and make a citrus syrup to use up all the nude fruit I have left. That may have to wait until tomorrow, I’ve run out of puff and still have two more armored vests to make.

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October 31, 2012

Cornbread

Sometimes the day just gets away from you and you find yourself in the car with a couple of starving boys demanding to know what delectable treat you’ve whipped up for afternoon tea. What you do is hold them off for twenty minutes with yesterday’s strawberry sorbet while you mix up some cornbread.

I was given this recipe by a Korean colleague of my husband’s, but really only started making it after we got back from the US last year. Over there it’s a thing you serve as a meal’s carbohydrate, like mashed potatoes, which I still can’t bring myself to do. I do like to make this recipe and put it into mini muffin cups, that way it will get taken in lunch boxes by my crumb averse children. Makes about sixteen mini muffins.

What you’re supposed to do is mix together one cup of flour, one cup of yellow cornmeal or polenta, four teaspoons of baking powder, a third of a cup of sugar and a pinch of salt. Then you’re supposed to beat in an egg and add up to a half a cup of milk, enough to make a stiff batter. Then you stir in a quarter of a cup of oil. But because I was being nagged fairly thoroughly I just dumped everything in the bowl and mixed it up and scooped it into mini muffin cups. Done after about fifteen minutes at 180 degrees.

You can also scrape it into a baking paper lined lamington tin and bake it for a bit longer for your more traditional shape. I’m sorely tempted to skip the sugar next time and substitute grated Parmesan cheese. Let me know if you try it before I do. It may interest you to know that while Parmesan cheese can be grated effortlessly in a Thermomix, it just makes a stick mixer make whiny noises. I can’t be bothered trying it in a blender. In case you were wondering.

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October 30, 2012

Blender Strawberry Sorbet

I may have to do a section on Anything Thermomix Can Do I Can do Almost As Well And A Little Bit Slower. Those of you who are paying attention know that I attended a Thermomix demo yesterday. One of the dishes prepared was a strawberry sorbet, and it struck me that this is the kind of thing you could do in a blender. So this morning I got me a punnet of strawberries and gave it a whack.

The first thing to note is that the Thermomix (or TM as they refer to it in their cookbooks, makes it sound more jolly) jug is two litres, while a random blender you’ve dug out of the corner cupboard has a capacity of about six hundred millilitres. To make strawberry sorbet in a TM you chuck in a hundred grams of icing sugar (which you can actually make in the TM), a punnet of strawberries, the white of an egg and about a litre of ice. The blender has the power of twelve jumbo jets, or a classroom of five year olds or something, and turns your ingredients into sorbet in seconds. I did find it a little dilute, but you needed that amount of ice to make the sorbet instant.

So into my blender went a hundred grams of icing sugar, the white of an egg and a punnet of strawberries. That kept it occupied for about a minute, but it all blended up in the end and I poured half the result out into another bowl. I added about three hundred millilitres of crushed ice and switched it on. I can’t believe how much I’ve used the ice function of the fridge I bought as part of my new kitchen last year, I was a determined pooh-pooher from a long way back and just got it to humour the kids. Anyway, while making some fairly disturbing noises the blender quite suddenly transformed the stuff into a slushy sorbet after about two minutes of hard work. I poured that out, and, fancying myself as a scientist, put the ice in first this time followed by the strawberry mix to see how that would work out. It was better the first way, or else I lost patience, but we got there in the end. You wouldn’t serve this up as is, but it would make an excellent cocktail base.

A couple of hours in the freezer made it a lot more presentable. I think the flavour is better with less ice and next time I’ll use less ice again. The texture is certainly more grainy than that made with a TM, but not unacceptably so. I’m going to be so popular when the kids get home. Can’t wait for mangoes to get cheap!

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October 29, 2012

The Thermomix Review

I shall now save you the trouble and expense of either hosting or attending a Thermomix party.

We’ve only heard about these miraculous additions to the busy housewife’s arsenal in recent years. They are a German designed, French produced machine that was initially sneaked into Australia by a Perth housewife and engineer. It has only recently worked its way across the country and into our notice. They’re a fairly expensive bit of kit and require a fair bit of rubbing of the beard before you decide to invest in one. You also need a comprehensive demonstration, which is why they’re only selling them through the housewife’s favourite – the party plan.

What they are is essentially a turbo charged blender on a heating element. A description like that isn’t going to make you lay down a couple of thousand smackers, so you need to see it in action. It has ten different blade speeds which will take you from pulverise to slightly chopped. This function in itself can make icing sugar, almond meal, fruit juice, pesto, coleslaw, strawberry sorbet, hummus, the last three of which were demonstrated. I have actually been making almond meal and icing sugar in the little one cup attachment to my stick mixer, also bread crumbs, so that’s not selling me. It has made me determined to dust off the blender we got as an engagement present some decades ago and see if I can replicate the strawberry sorbet with that.

Then you get to the cooking bit. You know that bit in dinner prep where you chop the veggies, then saute them, then add stuff and cook it for a bit. Well, this gizmo does all that for you. What I don’t get is that the recipe times seem to be a lot shorter than stovetop times, and yet the machine only goes up to 100 degrees Celsius and isn’t under pressure. Perhaps because the blade (which has a sharp edge and a stirring edge) is stirring the stuff constantly. It also has a device that sits on top that can utilise the steam escaping to cook your green veggies and couscous. Or wontons, if that’s your preference. This requires a special demonstration and a whole ‘nother party and has been given a special name which isn’t Valrhona, because that’s a chocolate brand, but something like it.

It all looks very sturdy, easy to clean and well designed and would definitely take the place of a food processor, blender, stick mixer, rice cooker and maybe even KitchenAid if you weren’t a heavy user. You could really clean out your appliance cupboard if you were getting one of these babies. I won’t be getting one, as you could probably guess, because I like chopping things up by hand, it gets rid of some of the latent aggression I build up by bottling things inside. I also have a lot of time to cook. My family don’t like their food mixed up, so the curries, soups, stews and casseroles that this dooverlackie specialises in aren’t of any use to me.

In summary, as the Moose would say because he’s studying for an English exam, you need a Thermomix if you have gainful employment or some other reason not to have a lot of time to cook, want to get rid of most of your appliances, and cook a lot of one pot meals. It’s an impressive thingo. I don’t need one.

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October 26, 2012

Gingernuts

My parents-in-law are taking the Horror from Outer Space for the weekend, and to express my extreme gratitude I’m making them gingernuts. Old fashioned ones that’ll crack your dentures unless you dip them in tea. Not that they wear dentures. Poppa loves gingernuts, Nanna still suffers from vestiges of a harsh Protestant upbringing that causes her to regard food as fuel and not something to be enjoyed, but she does like the idea of home cooking and for everyone to be happy, so that’s good enough for me.

My recipe is based on the one in 1970 edition of the Women’s Weekly cookbook that I’m sure every Australian household still has.

In a saucepan melt 100 grams of butter with a tablespoon of golden syrup. I sometimes wonder if I should look for a fancy pants alternative to the CSR version I use, since that’s the direction I seem to be heading in, but it has a distinctive taste. Lyle’s golden syrup is completely different. I’m sure you could use it, but it’s a lot more effeminate tasting.

In a bowl mix together one cup of caster sugar (don’t go messing with brown sugar in this recipe, they won’t be as crunchy), three teaspoons of ground ginger, one teaspoon of mixed spice and an egg. By this time the butter should have melted, so toss into it a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and stir it up to make it fizz. I don’t think this is an essential instruction, but I like it. Tip the butter mixture into the sugar mixture and mix it all up. Add two cups of flour and work it in. It’s a pretty stiff dough.

Pinch walnut sized bits (in their shell, not out) of dough and press them round in the palm of your hand. You can put them fairly close together on your lined biscuit tray, they don’t spread a lot. Bake at a hundred and eighty degrees until they’re really quite brown. I was going to time them today, I can tell you that I put them in the oven at exactly 11.56am, but then I started looking at Facebook, and there was a Melbourne Cup lunch going, and you know, some time later my nose said to me I think they’re done now. It may have been twenty five minutes. Anyway, you don’t want to burn them, but for that brick like consistency you need them pretty brown.

So I think these should go some way to expressing my thanks, and take their mind off the fact that the Horror is going through their house like a swarm of ants eating everything he can find with sugar in it.

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October 25, 2012

Two types of Chocolate Muffins

I value audience participation, so I asked the Horror from Outer Space if he were given the choice between chocolate peppermint muffins and chocolate coconut muffins, what would it be? “Bacon muffins” he said.

I think if you’re going to make chocolate muffins, you may as well go all out and make chocolate with chocolate chips. I went looking for recipes, and loosely based my first version on that of an American woman who was making these as a healthy treat for her son who was going off to college. Should I even comment on that? Perhaps not. They were OK, and have been eaten, but required work. The recipe I provide here is more satisfying.

Take a metal bowl and melt about sixty grams of butter in it by sticking it in the oven which you’ve turned on to preheat. I do like avoiding washing up. Once it has melted, you’ll want to leave it to cool for a bit so you don’t cook the egg too early. My original version used oil at this step, but the butter makes it richer. Add a half a cup of milk and an egg and beat it all together. If you’re going down the chocolate peppermint route, add half a teaspoon of peppermint essence to the mixture now, no more, that stuff is strong. Now the dry ingredients. Add a cup of flour, one quarter of a cup of cocoa, one third of a cup of sugar, one quarter of a cup of chocolate chips, two teaspoons of baking powder, one teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. If you’re going down the coconut route, add a quarter of a cup of desiccated coconut here. You don’t have to do coconut or peppermint, but I wouldn’t advise doing both. Mix thoroughly, and spoon into those little pattycake cases, I don’t want my kids eating large sized ones of these. It makes twelve if you fill the cases up, then you’ll get those nice muffin tops, rather than the ones resulting from eating too many muffins. I would normally then top with about three chocolate chips per muffin for an even more exciting top, but I got to the bottom of the packet and am resisting opening the big packet I got from Chef’s Warehouse. Bake at 180 degrees for about twenty minutes. When you’re testing for doneness with a skewer, make sure you haven’t stabbed one of the chocolate chips, because that will give you the wrong idea.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must return to basting my batting.

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October 24, 2012

REAL sewing

When my son’s school had a school play they told us to send him along in a white tshirt with a tea towel to put on his head. I’m paying now through the girls’ school, with an extreme crash course in sewing.

I have actually sewn something from a pattern once before, but that was in a white hot fit of indignation that a size 6 ice skating dress could cost one hundred and fifty smackers. I am lacking the adrenalin this time, and I’ve also gone into something yet again with out checking out what it involves. Having read the pattern about forty three times now, I’m pretty sure the teacher who gave it to me didn’t either. That, or she’s particularly sadistic.

I popped up to Spotlight this morning to supplement the bag of polyester I was given with stuff that the pattern actually specifies. I possibly should have looked up what soutache actually was before hunting through haberdashery and aisles and aisles of craft supplies for it. If you think I should have asked a staff member, you really haven’t been paying attention to my various personality disorders. I didn’t find it. I did find some red ribbon, sparkly felt, and wide gold stuff that should serve as buttons and studs when given the right treatment with scissors and a hot glue gun. Also batting, which seems ridiculously expensive for what it is, which is compressed fluff. I think this should get me through The Difficult Bit which is a rather fancy armoured vest.

The pattern said Apply Batting to Wrong Side of Front. I’m OK with wrong side. How do you apply batting? Dr Google tells me you can use spray glue, double sided tape, or basting. Pushing aside thoughts of pork crackling and lesbian pregnancy, I went with basting. I got very confused with right sides and wrong sides of fronts and backs and lining and mirror images, but regained confidence with ironing seams. I discovered why my mother used to curse so freely while sewing costumes as my daughter breathed down my neck while chewing expansively on a Mentos and wondering out loud what on earth I was doing. Then the Horror asked if there was such a thing as an anti-sewing machine as I held up the vest to realise that the capped sleeve was on back to front. I resisted showing him the stitch ripper up close. It was starting to look a lot like a cheap puffa vest, but then I got the Muffet to model it…

and it actually doesn’t look too bad. Except that I’ve put the OTHER sleeve on back to front as well. Actually, now that I look at it, possibly the sleeve is completely upside down. It’ll look a lot better with red ribbon and gold buttons on it. Heigh ho, only five more to go.

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October 23, 2012

Digging out the old sewing machine

The end of the year for any parent is a frenzy of concerts, award nights, end of year dinners, and sometimes, a school play. “Anyone’s mum or grandma can sew?” went out the call. “Oh yes, my mum’s great at sewing” said the Muffet. Or as I put it when I went to collect my material and instructions from a very frazzled looking sixth grade teacher, “I’m really good at sewing in straight lines”. “Any help at all is just wonderful” said the teacher. “I could kiss you!”. I took a step back, I need written notice for that kind of thing.

This morning I got out the pattern. I’m making six soldier’s costumes. They appear to consist of a tunic, a breastplate, and a very fancy combination of belt and skirt. I look at the back of the pattern packet for materials list. Something light for the tunic, imitation leather for the breastplate, gold buttons, metal studs, grosgrain ribbon, soutache, metallic braid, felt and batting. I look in the bag. Acres of polyester and a bulldog clip. I take a deep breath and decide to go to the gym.

Back home again I start reading the sewing instructions, always a good idea BEFORE starting, I’ve learned from experience. Blah blah blah selvedge blah batting blah blah turn yoke right side out, press, turn in raw edges on back edge and slip stitch closed. I check my email. There’s one from the Horror’s teacher complaining that he’s sitting in a corner with his shirt over his head refusing to talk to anyone. I send a sympathetic reply. Back to the instructions. Actually, the tunic doesn’t look too hard, even with a neck facing. I’m not going to bother with fusible interface, this thing is only going to be worn twice and is unlikely to get its own room at the Museum of Modern Art.

After a strong coffee, I got to it, and like many things, it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought

It only took a bit over an hour, and that included wiping mildew off the sewing machine. Only five more to go. Then we start on the tricky bits, and I’m going to resist the urge to draw the details of the breastplate on with marker pen. I shall go to Spotlight to get the missing bits. Not today, though.

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